1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scales for retail outlets having an electronics box whose topside is covered by a weighing plate and which contains a data processing and control unit, and having an operating area and a display area.
2. Description of the Related Art
Depending on the application, different requirements are made regarding the equipment and operability of scales used in retail outlets. For example, self-service scales in fruit and vegetable departments and service scales are operated by someone standing, while checkout personnel in a retail outlet are seated while operating checkout scales assigned to a cash register. This entails different, in part mutually contradictory ergonomic design principles, which have so far been only imperfectly honored by a single design of scales.
The desire for equipment which satisfies individual applications relates to input means and display means, but also to different memory and identification media, such as drives for floppy disks or CD-ROM, connections for electronic, electro-optical or electromechanical mass storage for example in accordance with the PCMCIA standard, as well as readers for magnetic strip cards or chipcards, by means of which an operator or a maintenance technician identify themselves at the scales. The housing of the scales would have to be changed for each variety of equipment. However, different built-on facilities render scales more expensive.